Wow, time needs to sloooow down. They always said having two this close would be a blur, and truthfully it is. I remember every detail from things with Landry, but now with Toad they have all seemed to run together. My dad always said, "the days are long but the weeks fly by." Isn't that the truth?
At 19 months, you:
Weigh 20 pounds, 11 ounces (15th percentile)
Stand 32" tall (60th percentile!!!)
Head circumference is 18.5" (50th percentile)
Wear size 4 diapers
Are wearing 18-24 months clothes
LOVE to read
Started officially walking on 5/16/14 - just over 17 months
LOVE to play hide and seek/marco polo with Daddy all over the house
Sat in time out for 1st time on 6/22 for repeatedly touching Mommy's decorations
Still have only __ teeth, but have many more right at the gumline
Make messes faster than we can clean them, a true toddler tornado!
Always know exactly what you want
Are stubborn, silly, and somewhat dramatic (ha!)
Love to point and look at our wedding picture on the wall (will only say Daddy, though)
Are becoming more of a picky eater
Love to brush your teeth, and enjoy using toothpaste now!
Finished your 1st 5K on 6/21/14 (in the stroller for mommy's work)
Love to look out the back door and yell at birdies - too funny!
Are doing much better with being gentle to your sister (most of the time)
Love going to daycare every morning -You wave, blow kisses and off you go
Got your 3rd haircut on 6/17/14 - sat pretty still overall
Enjoy going to the park and for walks - you even hold Sis's hand in the stroller
Loved your 1st swim lessons at the YMCA
Ride very well in the carseat
You talk a LOT! You pretty much mimic everything we say, and it never gets old. You sign "more" which also means more, drink, and fruit in Landry; milk, all done (also hilarious), rarely thank you (working on that one), wave/say buh-bye, blow lots of kisses. Some things you say: uh oh, Hi Daddy, fruit, Amen, more, milk. You know what a fishy, sheep, cow, elephant, snake and bear say. We work on lots of others but you are pretty shy about them still.
Another cute thing you do - almost every time we drive home you start giggling at almost the exact same point on West A street. We thought it was a fluke the first several times, but have since realized that you know that we are close to being home. Not sure how you know, because you can't see out very well, but it is impressive. And adorable :)
You are also doing great with simple commands. Like "go get your hair brush, bring me your milk, go find your ball, bring me the sweetie pie book, etc." The other night I even said "ok let's go to bed" and you waved bye to Daddy and walked to your room right up to your crib and put your arms up to be put in your crib. Also every night after your prayers you repeat "Amen." SO sweet!
We are still doing PT to work on getting up on your own (still not able to go from laying to sitting or sitting to standing). You are however doing awesome at bending over and picking things up off the floor. (You attempt to pick your sister up quite often now...eek!). You have pretty much mastered walking, and will even try to run almost every time that Daddy leaves the room...thinking you are playing marco polo (which usually it turns into).
You still eat ok, most of the time, but are definitely becoming more picky. You stopped eating meat as well as you used to, so now we have to camouflage it with either some ketchup or barbeque sauce which seems to be working. I'm not thrilled about that, but I guess what do ya do. You are also not as easy to feed vegetables too - it depends on your mood if you will eat or not. Mostly you would just be ok with sustaining on fruit for the rest of your life. I also made a fruit dip a couple weeks ago, and you hand me piece by piece to be dipped the second you see one of us eating it. Girl knows what's good!
Your favorite books are: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Dr. Seuss's ABC's (we both have that entire book memorized), Brown Bear Brown Bear, Bedtime Prayer Book, and My First Book of Letters. You absolutely LOVE to read. We read constantly.
You are also starting to interact more with Sis. You give her pat pats, rub her belly, occasionally pull her toes or poke her eyes, give lots of slobbery kisses and even bend down to see her when she is in her carseat like a total big girl. She loves to watch you, and smiles at you lots! We joke that Toad is just keeping tabs of all of the pokes and jabs you give her because she is going to be returning the favor here in a few short months. She is already almost as big as you are it seems! You even picked up one of her bottles and took it over to her and tried to feed it to her the other day. We are constantly amazed at the things you pick up on.
You are still a pretty good napper. At daycare you sleep 2 to 2 1/2 hours but on days when we are at home you will either take one long 3-4 hour nap or on weekends a 2-3 hour morning and 1-2 hour afternoon nap. We always feel bad that you sleep all day on weekends, but it seems like you need it after a long week of daycare!
Recently, you have also become very strong willed. For the most part you are an absolute sweetheart, but there are times we get glimpses of what is to come. After a warning you continued to throw food over your high chair (a nightly battle) so I gave you a small slap on your hand (instantly felt bad about doing it) and just as fast as I did it you reached right back and slapped me all while not breaking eye contact. I have never had to try so hard not to laugh. Quick little stinker! Roo had to leave the room to laugh at the situation. And you constantly want to touch my decorations in the living room. There are just a couple because it is mostly baby proofed, but I've always been a believer that you do not completely kid proof a house - and instead house proof your kid. They need to be taught to obey rules and listen to commands whether they are at your house or someone else's. So yes the candle sitting low is quite tempting (and not a huge deal if gets broke) but we are working on learning to obey and suffer consequences. Sometimes a stern "No" will suffice and you will go on your way, but more often then not you feel the need to play with it. You get a warning, and then time out becomes necessary. We decided we needed to be accountable to it once we started threatening it, so after we had told you No twice, you got sent to time out. Daddy took you back to your room and sat you on the floor and shut the door until you stopped crying (almost instantly). When he went back in to get you, you were not at the bookcase where we expected but were sitting right where he left you - rocking. Shocker. So we brought you back out, explained why you were sent in there, and let back down. You went straight back to the candle and grabbed it. So back to your room you went, this time to the crib. We are just starting to get tantrums from you so our fun is just beginning. If you have something in your hands you know you shouldn't, you all but run away from us usually putting it in your mouth in the meantime. How do we have a kid old enough that we are having to parent already??? Daycare said they haven't had any problems with you being ornery yet, but I'm afraid it won't be long. They still say you are really, really good all day everyday.
I'm thinking that here one of these days we need to start thinking about potty training. We have all the supplies, but you really haven't given any signs that you are ready yet. The only thing is, you poop your pants every single night during dinner, and we usually have quite a bit of notice that it's coming with lots of grunting. It will complicate our evening meals even more than they are already, but you are predicable and I'm thinking that might be a good time to start. We will see if and when that happens.
We are going to start the process of getting your hernia repaired. Within the next couple months we will be going up to Children's to meet with a surgeon and hope to have the surgery before the end of the year. Our pediatrician said normally they would wait another year or two before repairing it, but since we have far met our deductible this year we decided now is as good of time as any.
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I saw a picture awhile back of a bathroom door closed and toddler hands underneath it and the caption went something like "No matter where, they will find you." Now, I get it. I now understand why people said that every now and then it is so nice to be able to go to the bathroom or even take a shower without a toddler in the bathroom. Wouldn't change it for the world - but I no longer take being able to just go to the bathroom in quiet peace for granted :) I also understand what people meant by not taking for granted the days of eating together, being able to eat warm food, not having a screaming baby in your arms while trying to eat and feed baby simultaneously, parenting a toddler who loves nothing more than throwing food over her highchair, satisfying said toddler who incessantly says/signs "more" because she just wants more fruit, etc. It is literally a circus around these parts these days! Things can only get easier from here and one day we will be able to enjoy warm food again. But until then, we will embrace the chaos and constant messes and love on our girls. It's almost hard to remember what life was even like without them!
